Okay, so here's the hooker story from my latest trip to Las Vegas. I always seem to have one…
Wednesday night of last week, my plane got in around 9:15. By the time I was checked into the hotel, unpacked and done with e-mails I had to send, it was 11:15 PM and I decided I needed some dinner. I went online to the website of Giordano's, a Chicago-based chain that makes terrific deep dish pizzas and — lucky me! — has an outlet in Vegas, right in front of Bally's Hotel and Casino. I ordered an individual-size pie which, their website told me, would be ready at Midnight.
At 11:30, I left my hotel and began the hike over to pick up my order. On the way, I passed a lot of those folks in colorful costumes who line the streets in touristy areas, hoping you'll tip them for posing with you for a photo. There was a homemade Mickey Mouse and a homemade Minnie. There were shirtless body builders. There were almost-shirtless showgirls. There was a guy made up as Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies. Characters like that.
There were also guys trying to corral tourists — mostly male but some boy/girl couples — into agreeing to be whisked off to some strip club. I heard one of the salesguys say, "While you're there, every third drink is free." I don't drink but if I did, that offer would make me decide, "My, the drinks there must be very overpriced." And if two drinks are your limit, the club is now trapping you into a third which, among its other impacts on you, might cause you to spend a lot more money on the ladies than you intend.
One notch down the food chain from the strip club barkers, you had a couple of hustlers offering to fix single guys like me up on a "date." Having once been a teenage boy, I kinda understand the willingness to pay money for sex. I've never done it but I understand the feeling of necessity. What I don't get is committing to it without seeing the person you're going to be having sex with. What if Ernest Borgnine has a surviving twin sister who's turned to prostitution? Think about that but not for too long.
When I passed one of those fellows without showing interest, he yelled after me, "Don't like girls, huh? Then how about some pot? Everybody likes pot!" Always nice to see an entrepreneur who knows how to diversify his business.
And then there were the dates themselves who had cut out the middle-men: Women who couldn't have looked more like hookers if they were holding "Will hump for money" signs. A couple of them struck me as ladies who could only make that sale to men who hadn't seen them. But a couple of them looked like if you were in the market for that service, you couldn't have done much better.
I navigated past all of these individuals and thoughts to get to the intersection of W. Flamingo Rd. and Las Vegas Boulevard. There are elevated pedestrian walkways connecting these corners. You do not cross on street level. You take an escalator, elevator or stairs up to the walkway, cross up there, then take an escalator, elevator or stairs back down to street level. A trek like that would take me to my pizza.
The escalators were all outta commission and so was my knee which didn't like the whole concept of stairs just then, causing me to head for the elevator. The elevators don't get a lot of usage because they're out of the way and many people don't know they're there or that they don't double as urinals. This one seemed clean so I got in, pressed "2" and just before the doors closed, another man slipped in with me. He was ragged with zombie eyes…probably homeless, possibly crazy.
As we rode up, he was talking to someone — maybe even me — about killing someone — maybe even me. I wasn't particularly worried about him doing that between the first floor and the second but you don't want to engage with a being like that.
I got out on 2, relatively unkilled and walked across the pedestrian bridge to the elevator that would take me down. When it came, I noticed my unsavory elevator mate coming towards it so I stepped back and let him get in by himself. I figured I'd take the next ride down or maybe the one after.
Just then, a short black lady — obviously marketing her body that evening — started to board the elevator. I stopped her with a whispered "Don't get in."
She didn't get in but asked me, "Why not?"
I nodded at the guy and just then, as the elevator doors closed, he pointed at her and yelled, "I'm gonna fuckin' kill you, bitch!" And then the doors shut tight.
She thanked me and said, "You saved my life!" I said I didn't think so but maybe we both oughta wait a few minutes before the ride down. "Let's give him time to wander back to his penthouse suite," I said. So that's how I wound up talking to a Vegas streetwalker for about five minutes. It was an interesting five minutes.
She was very young and quite attractive and it was all I could do to not say, "What the hell are you doing in this profession?" She asked me where I was from — I suspect they all ask that — and when I said Los Angeles, she said, "We have something in common! I'm from San Diego!"
That's right: We had something in common! We were both from Southern California! Just us and 23.8 million other people.
I told her I was going to San Diego next weekend and, well aware she was leading up to offering the rental of any or all of her body parts, I decided to preempt that by saying, "We can't talk long. My girl friend's back in the room starving and I need to get back there with a pizza before she eats the little soaps in the bathroom."
It was a lie — Amber was back home in L.A. — but the lady bought it and the trajectory of the conversation changed. "Are you going there for Comic-Con?" she asked. I told her no; Comic-Con's not 'til July. "Though I have been to Comic-Con a lot." She asked me how many of them I'd been to and I said, "All of them." That was not a lie…and boy, does it impress the ladies.
(Fun Fact: She told me her age and the year she was born, the Guests of Honor at Comic-Con included Ramona Fradon, Neil Gaiman, Gil Kane, Stan Lee, Irv Novick, Harvey Pekar, Stan Sakai, Joe Sinnott and Jeff Smith.)
She told me she loved San Diego but she couldn't find work there that paid decently so a year ago, she moved to Vegas where she also couldn't find a job that paid well enough…until she turned to her current occupation. I asked, "Do you like it?" She said, "Most of the time. Some guys are psycho but so were some guys I waited on when I worked at Sunglass Hut."
I thought but did not say, "Yeah, but I have a hunch there was a lower rate of disease transmission at Sunglass Hut."
About then, it occurred to me that anyone passing us, as lots of people were, would assume she and I were negotiating prices. One time late at night in New York, I got into a conversation with a lady of the same vocation at the corner of W. 56th Street and 7th. Some friends of mine were coming from the Carnegie Deli and they spotted me there and probably still think I was — you should excuse this choice of word — dickering.
That's when I fibbed again to this lady in Vegas whose name I never got. I said, "Listen, I have to really save a woman's life — a woman in dire need of pizza." We took the elevator down and since there was no sign of you-know-who, said our goodbyes. She went her way and I went to Giordano's and got my order.
On my way back with it, I took the walkway again and spotted her back up there, talking with a fellow I guess was a potential customer — or maybe he was on his way to pick up a pizza. She saw me and she waved and yelled, "Thanks again!" I yelled back, "Any time!" And a lot of folks heard that and I knew just what they were thinking.
